


if there's something strange

by auroraldoctor



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Feelings Realization, Holding Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-14 18:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16497872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroraldoctor/pseuds/auroraldoctor
Summary: yaz could never get sick of the doctor. even though all she really does is get her in trouble. with aliens and breaking laws and such-like. why isn't she sick of the doctor.





	1. i'd follow you anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> be gentle with me i haven't written in a while. the second chapter should be up in a few days, i just need to. uh. write it.

Yaz pulls her hat down over her ears and looks around the warehouse again. Nothing’s changed since the last time she checked, which isn’t surprising seeing as it was less than a minute ago. It’s a bare-bones building, dark steel walls and steel pillars and minimal windows. There are lines of metal shelves stacked with boxes and shipping crates in a pile at the other end of the room. She’d peered into some boxes when they came in but all they had were nondescript electronics. Moonlight was filtering in through the plastic skylights in the roof, painting everything in soft white light. It's still dark enough that everything around them looks greyscale. The Doctor is scanning behind some boxes with her sonic, lighting the area orange. She never finished explaining what she was looking for - but she did give a detailed history of the pH chart that was more entertaining than expected.

“We should just call someone.”

“Who you gonna call?”, questions Ryan from his spot nearby attempting a casual lean on a pillar. He's only failing a bit. He doesn’t seem as cold as Yaz, but it's clear he's just as cautious about standing around in a warehouse at night looking for mysterious figures. He's been intermittently stealing glances at the door while looking down at his phone, the screen illuminating his face. 

The Doctor pops out from behind some dusty machinery with her hand in the air like she’s answering a question, waving it back and forth. “Ooh! Ghostbusters! I know that one!”

Yaz feels her face split into a smile and promptly becomes distracted when the Doctor smiles back. She has a really great smile. Getting distracted is just common sense. She’s currently wearing what appear to be night-vision goggles, and Yaz notes that they’re a recent addition. She definitely wasn’t wearing them when they left the TARDIS and they couldn’t have fit in her pockets. Probably. If she could ‘dimensionally engineer’ bigger pockets Yaz would really have to ask her about it.

Ryan clears his throat, and she realises they’ve been smiling at each other a little longer than necessary. The Doctor blinks, then looks down to her beeping sonic screwdriver and bounces off to investigate, her coat swishing behind her. Yaz’s cheeks flush with a not unwelcome warmth as she watches her go and she turns to look at him with her eyebrows raised. She’s trying to play breezy and unaffected but it falls flat as she starts to shiver a little.

“What?”

He respectfully ignores her blush, or maybe he can’t see it in the dark.

“I’m saying, who would we even call about this?” 

Earlier, Ryan and Yaz had gotten dropped in their own time period to loiter while the Doctor ran repairs on the TARDIS. They’d spent some time playing high stakes laser tag on an ice planet and during the game a snowstorm had blown into the console room. No-one owned up to leaving the door unlocked, but everyone pitched in to clean up as much as they could. The Doctor flew them back to Earth, then shooed them off so she could pull apart the intricate wiring and dry it off. When they returned after hot chocolates and a phone call to Graham (resting after twisting his knee diving away from an _accidental_ friendly-fire laser beam) the Doctor was eager to set off somewhere new. Until a screen started flashing, then she was eager to run around this industrial district in the dark to look for something 'skittery'.

“It’s probably just kids messing around. It would be pretty easy to scare them home.”

“You can’t call the police on them just for hanging about. And if they’re trespassing, so are we.”

The Doctor, still staring at her sonic, clambers down from the crate she was standing on at the other side of the room. She’s pushed her goggles up onto her head along with her hair, but a couple strands have fallen around her face. Yaz feels the urge to push them back around her ears, even from across the room. She blinks a few times and looks away, but the feeling doesn't really wane.

“It’s definitely not human. Too acidic”, the Doctor remarks, mostly to herself, while walking across the room to the duo. She looks up at them, beaming the way she does whenever she gets to call them a team name. “Alright gang! Let’s go!”

“Let’s go do what?”, says Ryan, less eager.

“From my readings of the area, and those eggs over by the crates, there’s an alien somewhere around here. Big. Too big to belong here. Traces of some kind of personal teleportation device, so it’s probably only the one. So, let’s go find it!” Her smile doesn’t falter, and she might be staring at Yaz again. It’s cute, but not as cute as it would be if Yaz’s feet were warmer. 

Wait.

“Eggs?”

“Yep!” 

She drops her sonic into her (dimensionally engineered?) pocket, then grabs both of their hands, pulling them off towards the door they’d entered from, the sound of her boots echoing in the high ceilings. Yaz blushes again. This really shouldn’t be happening. There’s an egg-laying acid alien running around. But all she can focus on is how soft the Doctor’s hands are, how warm she is, the calluses forming on her fingertips from tinkering brushing against her knuckles. She’d seen a guitar sitting in a corner of the TARDIS’ library one night, and wonders if the Doctor plays. Ryan has already let go, following a little behind, but Yaz tightens her grip. It’s the best way to warm up her hands.


	2. if only i knew where you'd go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the second chapter is running longer than expected so i'm going to cut it in two! the third chapter will be up soon! it's a bit late but it was fireworks night and i had to comfort my dog.  
> enjoy!

They’re still holding hands twenty minutes later and Ryan has started taking conspicuous pictures of them as they walk down the street. Yaz feels like it should bother her more, but then the Doctor looks over to her with a half smile. She concedes that Ryan’s non-verbal teasing isn’t bad enough to give this up yet. The weight of the Doctor’s hand is comforting against the night, and the mystery alien. It’s a weird time to feel safe, walking around in the dark looking for something that possibly spits acid. It’s hard not to feel safe with the Doctor.

The realisation halts her for a step and her boot squeaks a little on the wet pavement. Yaz trusts her completely, even with all the times she’d technically almost died in her company. As she’d stopped, the Doctor had turned to give her a questioning look. Yaz takes a second to admire the sincerity of her expression, then waves her off and continues walking. They’re still in the industrial estate. Walking in the middle of the empty roads between empty buildings beside empty car parks lit up by warm orange street lamps. Ryan’s put his phone away now, and he’s trailing behind them, peering into alleyways and dim windows. Yaz is still holding the Doctor’s hand.

“Do we have a plan to find this thing apart from walking around until we run into it?”

“Well, we’re trying that first, and if it doesn’t work we try something else. And I do tend to run into trouble at a pretty high rate.”

That’s true. She even seems proud of it, but has the humility to look a little sheepish when Yaz raises an eyebrow at her. Her face is lit up orange from the street lights, and she looks the same as she does when she’s standing in the TARDIS, revealing absurd new facts about alien species or far out planets and waiting for their reactions. Looking for approval, almost.

They’ve stopped again, closer together this time, still holding hands. Yaz isn’t sure why she keeps repeating the thought in her head. It’s not like they haven’t held hands before. The Doctor is always pulling her towards strange things, and on top of them, and then away from them - often at speed, because they’ve climbed something they shouldn’t have. But the vacant street, silent save the buzzing of the lights above them makes it more intimate. If she focuses enough, she can feel the Doctor’s dual pulse in her palm. Everything around her seems fuzzy, muted - yet the Doctor is, as always, incandescent.

Her hair is falling around her face again. This time, Yaz doesn’t stop herself from turning to face her and bringing her free hand up to push it back. Her fingers brush the shell of the Doctor's ear, touching the cool metal of her ear jewellery. Her stomach is flipping over on itself. The Doctor’s mouth goes a little slack, and her gaze moves over Yaz’s face, flickering down to her mouth then back to her eyes. Yaz feels her pulse jump, and wonders if the Doctor can feel it in her palm too.

Then there’s a _CRASH_ that rattles the ground, and Ryan comes sprinting around the corner, arms flailing. The Doctor turns to the sound, then drops Yaz’s hand and strides towards him, making sure he’s not hurt. Yaz’s hand feels cold but her face is warm again. She ignores it.

“Found it then?”, the Doctor says snarkily, already pulling out her sonic.

“YOU WERE RIGHT!” He’s still making it towards them, the hood of his coat flapping.

“Usually am”, she quips. He arrives, bending over and putting his hands on his knees while she positions herself in front of the both of them. She gives Ryan another once over then fixes her eyes on the area he’d ran out from, “About what?”

The creature stomps into view from behind a hardware store, standing in between two building across from them. It’s heavy breathing blows puffs of steam into the air from its nose as it eyes up the trio, pawing a foot at the ground.

“It’s big”, he pants.

In fact, it’s easily eight feet tall. With a rotund green stomach and a scorpion-like shell in three segments on its back, reflecting moonlight. It has six stumpy legs and flat disc feet, but the face is surprisingly cute. Like if you described a cow to someone that had never seen a cow before and they drew it. The face was round and it had a snout and big nostrils, as well as curled black horns. Except it was green, and had seven eyes and no discernible mouth - not quite as bovine.

“There you are! Been looking for you, how’s it going?”, says the Doctor conversationally. She puts her sonic away and takes a cautious step forward with her palms outstretched. Yaz doubts it will answer, until it starts to make a gurgling sound. The Doctor stops walking.

The alien starts to pull the entire top of it’s head backwards like a top-heavy Pac-Man and reveals its throat. Yaz is considering retiring from spending any time outside of her bedroom. Ryan is envying Graham’s injured knee and surface burns ( _accidental_ ). The Doctor is... entirely too excited.

It spits a stream of acid towards the group, missing them by a few feet. The liquid hisses on the ground and it closes its mouth - which is more of a gaping maw, really. The Doctor still looks excited.

“She is nuts”, mutters Ryan. Yaz agrees with him, but smacks him on the arm for the tone of his voice. He yelps. She takes a step closer to the Doctor.

“What is it?”

“That, Yaz, is an Amilsidonian daso. Farm animal, bit like a cow, but evolved for a planet with constant acid rain. It’s very lost”, she answers, brows furrowed. Her face falls, and she adds in a softer tone, “And probably terrified.”

Ryan seems like he's going to say something mean, but he softens a little too. "What do they farm them for?"

“Acid.”

“Who farms acid?”

“Acid farmers.” She continues walking forward, palms still outstretched and mumbling reassurances. The daso starts pawing at the ground again, so she stops and backs away.

“Why do they need to farm acid if the planets covered in it?”, Yaz chimes in.

The Doctor spins around at that, smiling. “That's a great question!” Yaz beams, stomach fluttering. “The daso can drink the water and naturally filter out the acids. It pools in a gland beneath their stomach, which obviously they can use if they or their eggs are threatened." She jabs a thumb at the pool on the ground. "Amilsidonians gather it and use it to fuel their machinery.” She tilts her head to the side a little, thinking.

“She must have been teleported here on accident when they were trying to take her to an egg-laying pen”, she says after a pause. Her hair slides back over her face when she looks up. She looks from Ryan to Yaz, then takes a breath. “I need to go back to the TARDIS to get some teleportation equipment. Think you can distract her for a bit?” She scrunches up her face, smiling hopefully.

Yaz is quite endeared by her audacity. Ryan is not.

“You want us to babysit the acid spitting alien?”

“Just for a bit! You guys don’t know where I keep my teleport-y stuff, and we can’t lose her again. She won’t hurt you if you stay away from her, and you’re probably faster than her on foot. No, definitely faster.” She scrunches her brow and waves a hand in their direction, presumably meant to be supportive. She’s telling the truth, but it’s not convincing until she turns to face Yaz, eyes pleading.

Because Yaz trusts the Doctor.

"We’ll do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two things:
> 
> 1\. seven eyes and no discernible mouth is a GREAT band name
> 
> 2\. i made up the alien name from translating the word 'acid' into various indian languages (bc india has the highest rainfall of any country in the world). i also used some portugese and spanish (bc the largest wetlands in the world are in southern america, covering bolivia, brazil and paraguay and i imagine the planet is quite wetlandish). im very proud of the useless amount of effort i put into this.


	3. if you'll allow me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long turns out im STILL depressed who would’ve thought! but hey! two chapters for the price of like. a month.

The Doctor’s looking at her, eyes hopeful, like she would ever decline.

“We’ll do it”, Yaz answers, basking in the way the Doctor’s face breaks into a grin, the corners of her eyes creasing.

Ryan throws his hands up, giving her a baffled expression, but he stays too. The creature in question has settled some, and seems to be watching their back and forth, eyes blinking out of unison. The Doctor claps her hands together and it startles for a second. She twists, apologises in a low voice then claps her hands again, softer this time.

“Brilliant! And she really won’t bother you. If you stay still. And quiet. I’ll be back in a jiffy”, she says at the same volume, leaning towards them. “Good word that”, she adds as an afterthought as she straightens, giving the creature a last glance.

She bounds off in the direction of the TARDIS, and Yaz watches her go, coat flapping around her legs as she skips every few steps. Yaz’s chest warms at the sight. When she turns back to Ryan he gives her a significant look, though she’s not sure why it’s significant. His eyebrows are still raised in disbelief, but he has a small smile, and when he catches her look he rolls his eyes. He doesn’t say anything about it though, leaving them in companionable silence. Yaz surveys the area around them, then leans against a street lamp and locks her eyes on the creature as Ryan steps from foot to foot and rubs his arms to keep himself warm. The daso watches them too, and after a while it relaxes its back, making it look smaller.

“I can’t believe you agreed to this”, he says after a minute, breaking the quiet. When she doesn’t reply, he shakes his head and laughs. “You must really like her.”

Yaz startles, her mind going blank for a moment then kicking into overdrive. What does he mean? Is she blushing again? The blushing thing’s getting out of hand. She tries to keep her expression impassive as she turns to face him, though her eyebrows are low over her eyes and her mouth is open in an almost gasp

“What.”

He raises his eyebrows, then pauses for a slight dramatic effect. “What, did you think your massive crush on the Doctor was subtle?”, he says with a smirk. He stops for a second when he has to throw out his arms out so he doesn’t fall over trying to stop his foot going numb, but continues smirking again when he’s standing, crossing his arms.

Yaz doesn’t notice. She’s busy feeling her brain melt. She’s an idiot. She might have to hand in her badge for missing something this obvious. God, of course she has a crush on the Doctor. She can feel memories flashing through her head: eagerly following the Doctor into enemy territory; desperately memorising all the facts the Doctor revealed about herself; softly hugging the Doctor and breathing in stardust and lavender and getting dizzy for a moment; the blushing and the fixation on the hand holding and the longing gazes when she was committing heroic acts.The things she notices about the Doctor - the way her forearms look when she rolls up her sleeves to work, the way her hair moves in the wind, the determination on her face whenever she points her sonic at something. And the way Yaz looks at her while she does these things - lovesick, disbelieving. She could feel the way her face moved, never gave it thought, because the Doctor is spectacular. She deserves every awe-struck look she gets.

She remembers one night after Ryan and Graham and gone home, leaving her and the Doctor in the console room together. Challenging each other to fit as many custard creams in their mouths as they could. Yaz using it as an excuse to stare at the Doctor’s mouth, the corners of her lips upturned, her rush of envy when the Doctor ran her thumb against her own lip. And that was gross! She was drooling! Why on earth would she want to kiss that?

She lets out a soft ‘oh’ at the thought. 

Because she does want to kiss her. She has never felt anything as desperately as this pull to press her lips on the sharp corner of the Doctor’s smirk. Her hands ache for missing her. She might have abandoned her post had she not given the Doctor her word.

Oh, she has fallen hopelessly for the Doctor.

Ryan, who’s been watching her slack-jawed face with worry for the last couple minutes, finally recognises her expression of shock.

“Did you.” He pauses to take a shaky breath. Of all the things he’d expected when he brought up Yaz and the Doctor - blushing, laughing, adamant yet flimsy denial - this might be the jackpot. He can’t stop himself grinning. “Did you not realise you had a crush on her?” 

He has a look of barely concealed ecstasy. He’s pushing his social etiquette as far as possible to stop himself from laughing in her face. It’s a real attempt to be considerate, which is unlike him. But Yaz hasn’t recovered from the shock, can’t mask the look of genuine despair she feels crossing her features. Then he loses it.

He starts howling with laughter as Yaz blushes furiously beside him, trying to think of a way to salvage this. He’s never going to let this go. She’s going to be putting up with his teasing to the grave. This is the worst time to realise she has a crush, including the time she went to her first sleepover (five years after everyone else) and realised she was bisexual about twenty-five seconds after having to share a sleeping bag with Laurel Adam. Yaz groans. Ryan has started crying though his gasping laughter. This might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“Oh my god! Some detective you’re gonna be!”, he gets out between peals of laughter. The daso has started to shift, nervous of his sudden volume.

Yaz stops what she’s doing - which is pulling her hands down her face in horror - and sees the daso start to shuffle its feet around and stand up taller. Her instincts kick in and she ignores her mortification-slash-world-changing-realisation to turn and tap Ryan on the shoulder, repeatedly and harder than necessary. The daso leans back, preparing to run. Or maybe leap, a thought her brain provides that makes Yaz want to renounce conscious thought.

“Ryan, shut up.”

“No! I am never going to shut up about this!”

“No, seriously, be quiet!”

It snorts. Ryan still doesn’t notice. 

“Ryan! Shush! You’re scaring her!”, she continues in a harried whisper.

He hears her this time and, still laughing a bit, looks up the the daso at the same time it starts charging at them. It’s almost worth it for the split second of horror she sees on his face before she starts running. Almost.

“Run!”

“Yeah, gathered that!”

Yaz sprints down the middle of the street towards a fenced in delivery bay she’d spotted earlier, listening for the sound of Ryan’s shoes smacking against the concrete as he follows her. She notes in passing the absence of a third. They reach the entrance to the area, a gap in the spiked fence, making a quick turn to the right then ducking behind a parked truck. The creature slows down when it loses sight of them and starts pacing up and down the length of the fence, huffing out breaths. There’s a rhythmic thud with every step it takes on its six feet which could be relaxing if they hadn’t watched it strip down paving stones with its stomach acid earlier.

Yaz takes a second to catch her breath, then schools her features into the most withering stare she can manage and turns to glare at Ryan. He’s still smiling, teeth glinting in the moonlight. She closes her eyes for a second, clenching her teeth. But it’s such a preposterous situation that she can’t help but burst into laughter. Ryan joins in, and then they both drop to the ground laughing, Ryan gripping onto Yaz’s forearm to stop himself falling over. Hunched over, on the wet concrete behind a dirty truck wheezing clouds of warmth into the cold air. They’re still desperately trying to stay quiet, but every time they shush one another it sets off another round of hushed giggles. The moment feels golden. Yaz wishes she could bottle it.

After they finally settle, still grinning, Yaz leans around the corner. The alien is still pacing the fence, pausing occasionally to sniff at the ground, and once to take a bite out of a low-hanging tree branch. It’s still agitated. It’s easier to make out the details now, as it stands under a street lamp. Its face is a scaly texture, but there’s a small scrape on its cheek, and another across its shell - it’s injured.

She’s really sympathising with this space cow. She pulls back, giving Ryan a thumbs up.

“She’s fine.”

“Oh thank god”, he says quietly, with as much sarcasm as he can fit into three words. “It’s a she now is it?”

She rolls her eyes. “She did lay eggs. I don’t think she knows enough English to have preferred pronouns.”

He snorts. “Crap, I forgot about the eggs. They’re not gonna hatch, right?”

Yaz has the same amount of answers he does, and they sit in silent worry for a moment.

“Don’t worry about it.” She tries to say it decisively, but it comes out more like a question. Ryan humours her. He looks over to the daso and sighs, quiet. 

“Should we name her?”

“Pfft. Sure.”

They trade off names for a bit, laughing at their terrible suggestions. They have a hushed debate between ‘Slimer’ and ‘Bessie’, settling on the latter and laughing about that some more.

Then Yaz remembers, in a heart-wrenching instant, the Doctor. Namely, her feelings for the Doctor. Not that she’d forgotten. That she could ever forget the Doctor. She’s been spending whole days recently, thinking about the Doctor, what she would think of the parts of Yasmin’s life: the way she would brighten and bounce at the mural Yaz passes on the way to work every day, or the family of bunnies a neighbour has in their communal garden, or her colleagues light-up water bottle. The sparkle of her eyes, the way she bounces on her toes, the heart and love behind every thing she does. The way she makes Yaz feel special, makes her want the tell the Doctor how spectacular she is, how wonderful and brave and ethereally beautiful.

Ryan pokes her in the arm, breaking her out of her reverie. He has a smug look on his face like he’s guessed what she was thinking about, but instead of beginning his barrage of ribbing, he pulls out his phone. Flicking to its camera app, he opens the photos he’d taken earlier. Yaz and the Doctor, holding hands. She can’t remember him taking this one - the image captured a second after she’d pushed the Doctor’s hair behind her ear. They’re standing less than a foot apart, bathed in orange light and both casting two shadows, the street stretched behind them. Their hands are clasped in the small space between their bodies, Yaz’s free hand stopped on the curve of the Doctor’s ear. They are, almost imperceptibly, leaning towards one another. She pinches her fingers to zoom in, can see how wide her eyes are, how dark the Doctor’s are.

“The sound of the camera going off was what Bessie started chasing me for.”

She barely registers his voice. Her world has sharpened to the image, hands cradled around Ryan’s phone like it’s something precious. She could call it romantic, if it were anyone else. But the Doctor is an impossible stranger. Falling for strangers is a speciality of Yaz’s, but they never fall down to her level.

She gives Ryan his phone back and groans into her hands.

“You’re a good photographer”, she says through her fingers. He preens. “But why are you showing me this?”

“You keep looking sad about your crush”, he says, emphasising the word ‘crush’ in a singsong voice, “But she definitely likes you back.”

She scoffs, and Ryan closes the app, both turning their eyes to the newly-named Bessie. Her heart sings at the words, but she can’t let herself believe them. Being the Doctor’s friend is one of the best things that’s ever happened to her - she couldn't risk losing it. She’ll just sit with her feelings forever, like any rational adult would.

There’s a crash, again, behind her. Bessie snorts and Yaz looks up.

It’s the Doctor. Yaz can practically hear a choir in her head.

Except she’s upside down, groaning, with one foot stuck in the space between two fence posts. Ryan starts shaking with laughter again, so Yaz steps up to pull her boot from where it’s wedged, letting the Doctor flop down onto the bushes below. She grins up at Yaz with a small leaf in her hair. 

She’s wearing a bulky device with a spinning dish and flashing blue lights on her back like a backpack, and she hooks her thumbs onto the straps as she struggles up from the branches. She lands directly in front of Yaz, who smiles fondly and brushes a twig off of her shoulder as she wobbles. As she stands in front of her, she can feel her organs melting into a puddle and adamantly reminds herself about her new commitment.

“Cheers! Never been good at fences. Did you move?”

“Ryan scared her and she charged at us.”

It’s a touch petulant, though it was technically his fault. Ryan seems affronted, and she suppresses the urge to stick out her tongue at him. The Doctor nods like she expected this. She takes a breath to look at them, eyes lingering on Yaz for a second, mouth in an open grin. She blinks, looks away, breathing out in a sigh and shaking her head.

“So, I’ve got the teleporter, but I still need to get her coordinates. Our options seem to be sneaking past her to scan her eggs, or scanning her ID tag. Except I don’t know where it is. And we can’t get back to her eggs from here without climbing this fence, which I’d rather not do.”

Ryan pipes up, raising his hand for a moment then looking perplexed, and dropping it. “What does the tag look like?”

The Doctor tilts her head to the side, squinting her eyes. “Yellow?”

Yaz is watching Bessie, wary that the Doctor’s loud entrance could lead her to them. It was only a matter of time before she walked far enough around the left corner to find the opening in the gate.

“Does it look like a sticker?”, Ryan continues.

“Might do. Did you see it?”

“I saw a yellow thing stuck to the side of her head earlier. Just underneath those”, he waves his hands around his ears, “horn things. On the right.”

Yaz turns around in time to watch the Doctor’s face go from carefully blank to quietly determined, and remembers the last time she saw the expression. She’s started to pull her sonic out of her pocket.

“Doctor you cannot go over there!”, she whispers forcefully, though she can feel the corner of her mouth turn up. But really. She’s all for action, but Bessie can spit acid. The Doctor’s eyes flicker, and her hands twitch around her sonic, but she keeps moving, tilting her head and mouthing a ‘sorry’, then jumping in front of the food truck and towards Bessie.

Yaz sighs, and shakes her arms out, stepping around the truck to follow her. She’d follow the Doctor anywhere. This time, the realisation makes her walk faster, catching up so she can walk beside her, to smile over the arm holding out her sonic as it scans.

“Changed your mind, have you?”, she quips, her grin breaking up her attempt at stern determination.

“Let’s just go send Bessie home.”

“Did you name her while I was gone?” She pouts, offended. Yaz gives her a solemn nod. “Bessie is a good name”, she concedes, face lifting. Then they’re smiling at each other, another moment Yaz wishes she could live in, the Doctor’s joy. Her heart, thrumming with excitement in her chest, leaps. Then Bessie sees them advancing, and Yaz finds out, to her horror, that she _can_ leap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two more things:  
> other names i came up with included DASOPACITO  
> the doctor won the custard cream competition with a close 10-8


	4. come with you home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long turns out im STILL depressed who would’ve thought! but hey! two chapters for the price of like. a month.

It’s ten perilous minutes before Ryan shouts, “Oh! No! The other right!”, to the Doctor as she’s jumping away from Bessie’s swinging head. Yaz is crouched on the ground on the other side of the daso, trying to stay out of her peripheral vision.

“RYAN!”, the Doctor yells, exasperated, so much so that she takes a second to glare at him and ends up getting her foot stomped on. She grunts, bends over in pain, then catches Yaz’s eye through Bessie’s shifting legs. “Catch!”

She slides her sonic across the ground, face switching from immediate regret to disbelieving joy when it makes it, then yelping when the daso’s head pushes her back. Yaz scoops it up, spares a glance to the Doctor who’s still trying to converse with Bessie, then looks up to her - not ears, really, but close - to see an orange-yellow square attached to her scales. She makes a note to self to glare at Ryan too, but later. She aims the sonic, presses the button at the front and feels it hum in her hand as it scans. Bessie spins to her and starts growling.

“That means hurry!”, offers Ryan from his spot waving to get the creature’s attention.

She rolls her eyes to no-one. The sonic beeps just as Bessie locks all of her eyes on Yaz, blowing clouds from her nose in exertion. Yaz gulps, taking a step back. She hopes the Doctor hasn’t moved too much.

“Doctor! I’m going to throw the sonic over her! Please catch it!”, she shouts, pulling her arm back and throwing the device in an arc over Bessie’s head. Before it lands, she ducks to the side, running towards Ryan before Bessie can back her into the fence. She gets to him, twists back to see the Doctor giving her a thumbs up as she taps a screen on her teleportation device. Seeing the Doctor standing, hair ruffled and brow creased in concentration, makes the knot of worry in her stomach loosen. She can feel her face break into a goofy grin.

“Are you kidding me?”, says Ryan by her side. She shrugs, too elated to care, still staring at the Doctor press buttons.

Bessie is ignoring her, but has stopped advancing on the pair. The air stills. She blinks all of her eyes at them, one after another, then starts to make a gurgling noise. Yaz feels her stomach twist on itself again, and hears Ryan whimper to her left.

“That also means hurry Doctor!”, Yaz shouts across the concrete, eyes locked on Bessie.

“Just keep her distracted for a bit!”, she shouts back, frantic, winding up a dial on her backpack, arm twisted behind herself.

There’s nothing else to do but stand their ground as Bessie pulls her head apart. Yaz doesn’t appreciate the close-up of her teeth, or dark mouth, and feels her hand move to grab Ryan’s arm. The Doctor throws a hand up, and slinks behind Bessie out of sight. But she notices, starts to turn her head around, and Yaz reacts.

“OI! BESSIE!”, she screams, all instinct, no input from her higher functions. The Doctor is swimming in her head, surrounding her. Her heart jumps to her throat, and she starts stepping backwards as Bessie turns her open head back to them. Ryan follows.

A whirring noise fills the air from the Doctor’s direction, but Bessie doesn’t care about her anymore, the gurgling from her throat increasing in volume. Drips of hissing liquid drop to the pavement below her. Yaz can’t even blink, backs up faster. Ryan twists his foot, trips over his own ankle and falls towards the ground, but Yaz still has a steely grip on his arm and yanks him back up.

Bessie rears her head back. The Doctor yells, exuberant, from behind her and there’s a flash of blue light. It envelops Bessie, and her final roar drops out when she disappears.

In the space across from them stands the Doctor, particles of blue light swirling around her. She’s holding a small satellite dish attached to her backpack in one hand, the other perched in her hip in a superhero pose. She blows on the dish like a smoking gun. Ryan drops back down to the ground, breathing out relieved laughter. 

And Yaz is transfixed on the Doctor. Her hair is a mess, folded over on itself, her whole face creased with a grin. Yaz is floored by how beautiful she is. In the absence of danger, she has time to remember everything. And she so obviously has a crush. It might ruin her. How will she ever think about anything except kissing the Doctor?

The Doctor, who’s been making her way towards them, stops in front of Yaz, within arm’s reach. Yaz can feel her heart flutter against her ribs. She’s blushing again, finds herself stepping towards the time lord and wrapping her in a hug. She was closer than she thought, ends up pressing her whole body flush against the Doctor’s, tilting her head up to rest her chin on the other woman’s shoulder. 

“Thank you”, she says, low, lips millimetres from the chain of her earring.

The Doctor wraps her arms around Yaz’s back, resting her own head on Yaz’s shoulder.

“Yeah. You too”, she mumbles. They stand for an endless moment, wrapped into each other, until the flash of a camera makes Yaz jump back. The Doctor shakes her head and clears her throat as Yaz narrows her eyes at Ryan.

He’s grinning again, but his face falls when Yaz leans over to shove at his shoulder. “Hey! What was that for?”

She puts on a mocking voice to say, “No! The other right”, while waving her arms over her head. He puts his phone away, looking apologetic.

“Right. Yeah.”

She continues glaring at him for a second as he shuffles his feet, then bursts into laughter and drops her head back in exhaustion, groaning. Her legs ache and she can feel a bruise blossoming on her shoulder. The arm she’d used to hold up Ryan twinges when she stretches it out. He yawns and rubs at his eyes.

When Yaz looks over to the Doctor her eyes are half-lidded too. It makes her want to hug her again. When the Doctor sees her looking, she perks up, stretches her arms over her head, pushing her hair back.

“We need to go get her eggs now”, she says, somewhere between pleased and apologetic. Yaz and Ryan groan in unison, and it makes her laugh. “Sorry, sorry. Just another ten minutes, and I can take you home.”

Ryan grumbles under his breath and starts trudging in the direction of the warehouse they’d started in. Yaz snorts and turns to the Doctor, smiling, then sets off behind him. She follows, walking as close as she can, their hands brushing every time their arms swing. Yaz thinks about her, lavender and stardust, running her hands along the curve of her ear, following the Doctor, trusting her. She thinks about the light pink flush of the Doctor’s cheeks after they hug. She thinks about how wonderful and funny and kind she is, how brave. Brave. She takes a short breath, and keeps looking forward.

“Can I hold your hand?”, tumbles out of her mouth, breathless. When she turns to look at her, her Doctor, she looks just as shocked at the words as Yaz is. But just when she’s about to backtrack, she smiles. The Doctor curves her wrist around hers, curls her fingers into the spaces between Yaz’s own, places her thumb on top of hers. They share a soft smile, turn their eyes back to the orange lit street.

They walk like that while Yaz blushes again. She can feel the Doctor get less tired as they walk, the energy always thrumming under her skin bubbling to the surface. Every few steps she bounces her knees, or opens and closes her mouth, about to say something. Yaz gives her the time to capture her thoughts.

Eventually, she breaks the quiet with, “Did say you had hot chocolate earlier?”

Yaz puffs a laugh out of her nose and nods. She can feel a yawn in her throat.

“Can we get some more? It’s just, I haven’t had hot chocolate in this body yet. Don’t know if I like it. I think the last one did.”

Yaz just watches her, the small movements of her face, the way her eyebrows move up and down as she squints and smiles. She speaks like she’s interrupting herself, tripping over her own sentences with enthusiasm. Yaz adds it to the list of things she loves about her.

They’re still talking about hot chocolate when they arrive at the warehouse to Ryan leaning against the wall. He pushes off when he sees them, then glances down at their joined hands and raises his eyebrows. Yaz uses her free hand to give him the finger out of sight of the Doctor, and he starts giggling. As they get closer, he disguises it as a cough.

“You alright, Ryan?”, says the Doctor, earnest.

Yaz glares at him, then turns to the Doctor to say, deadpan, “He’s asthmatic. Don’t worry about it.”

Ryan wheezes beside them. The Doctor gives him a puzzled look as Yaz ignores him. She’s about to ask what the plan is when Ryan suddenly straightens and turns to them a horrified look. His eyes are wide, mouth agape, a stark contrast to a second ago. 

Yaz wonders if he’s been possessed, until he says a sentence that give her the exact same expression, feels the Doctor’s hand tighten around her own.

“What if the eggs have hatched?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ryan: look at these idiots. disgusting.  
> also ryan: im taking 6000 pics for my thasmin scrapbook
> 
> although this took way longer than expected to finish im really proud of myself! and happy with this, not just posting it bc i want this to be finished!
> 
> i really hope you like it too, and if u did pls let me know! tell me ur fave part! criticise me! tell me ur wildest hopes and dreams! leave a kudos! i love you so much!
> 
> find me on [my tumblr](http://www.auroraljellyfish.tumblr.com) << thats a LINK im a html genius

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this whole thing bc of the ghostbusters joke. i can practically hear jodie saying it.
> 
> AND if you're reading this on (/before/even a couple days after i'm not picky) november 3rd wish me a happy birthday! on tumblr!: pulchritudinousjellyfish.tumblr.com
> 
> (also is it yaz or yas? comment below like and subscribe and SMASH that kudos button)


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